


Watch me Burn

by lilacSkye



Category: RWBY
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Coping, Hurt/Comfort, I really have a lot of feelings for these two golden dragons, Implied Bumblebee - Freeform, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tai is a cool dad, because Yang is not okay and has nightmares, kind of an alternate version to Tai and Yang's talk in volume four, let me know if I forgot something else, this is basically me rambling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 17:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10835934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacSkye/pseuds/lilacSkye
Summary: Yang keeps having nightmares of her encounter with Adam, and her thoughts are filled with the image of a certain black haired faunus beauty. Tai is done seeing his beloved daughter slowly slipping away in a dark train of thoughts he knows all too well, and tries to reach out to her.





	Watch me Burn

It always started the same: she was running through the school's courtyard, dodging Grimms lunging at her from every side as flames chased after her, tall and orange and angry, destroying everything in their path.  
  
She ran and ran, searching for something, the exhaustion digging a knife deep into her side, but she couldn't stop now, she had to keep going, she had to find--  
  
A scream, a voice she came to know all too well, a voice that was usually calm and collected but also could be unbelievably warm, and that was when Yang's world tumbled down. The flames caught up with her, surrounded her, so close that a few sparks burned the tips of her hair. But none of that mattered now, because there was _him_ , in the middle of the cafeteria where they had one of the funniest food fights ever seen, in another lifetime that felt too far away now, slowly sliding his hellish blade out of the open wound on Blake's stomach.  
  
Red blood seeped through the hole, trickled down the dark blade, stained the pure white of Blake's top as a pained gurgle escaped her unnaturally pale lips.  
  
"Yang..."  
  
And that was all Yang needed to ignite: the flames that had tried so hard to consume her now were turning gold, and were inside her, setting her heart on fire, pumping heat in her veins.  
  
Red and black. That was all she could see. Red like the twisted rose emblem on the man's back, like Blake's blood, like Yang's blazing eyes right now; black like his clothes, like Blake's beautiful hair, like the hole Yang was going to punch into his stomach.  
  
She charged at him, a bundle of fire, burning hotter than a supernova, rampaging and impossible to control. He was still turned away from her, his attention focused entirely on the faunus girl lying at his feet.  
  
Then he whirled around, and in a flash of red and black Yang was extinguished. She watched, in slow motion, as Ember Celica - her faithful companion, another sister that fought so many battles alongside her - abandoned her, flew away from her along with her arm.  
  
It was the strangest sensation, watching part of her being severed, but the pain didn't come.  
  
Blood sprayed from the newly formed hole, pooling at her feet. She fell, wide-eyed, sprawled in a heap of lifeless gold and violent crimson. And yet she felt nothing at all.  
  
The first thing she noticed was that Blake was not lying on the floor at her side, as she should.  
  
"Fool." A woman's voice spoke up from somewhere above her, but she didn't have the energy to turn and see who it was. A black, heeled boot appeared suddenly in her field of view and kicked her hard in the stomach, rolling her onto her back. Yang felt the sharp pain spark through her nerves, rippling through her like tidal waves from the spot the leather had made contact with her skin. She screamed and coughed, a wave of nausea crashing over her.  
  
Blake was standing where the black-clad faunus man was until a minute ago, Gambol Shroud in her hands, the dark blade stained with Yang's blood. Yang felt all her heat, all her energy, vanish as she stared into her cold, amber eyes, usually so vibrant and that now held nothing but contempt in their frozen depths.  
  
This wasn't right, it couldn't be. Blake would never turn on her, would never look at her with so much hatred and indifference. She would never betray Yang.  
  
Would she?  
  
Yang coughed again, another jolt of pain running down her spine. Her lips felt dry, parched, ready to split as she struggled to open them and mouthed Blake's name. Blake scoffed and turned back on her, briskly walking away.  
  
Yang was not new to pain. It had always been the primary force that pushed her back to her feet. But the pain she felt stabbing through her heart as she watched Blake's curly hair grow smaller and smaller in her view was nothing like the pain she was used to, seeping through the creases of her aura, pooling into the cracks of her heart as the scars of past wounds reopened and burned. She struggled to breathe as she scrambled to her feet and fell again on her knees, her balance impaired by the lack of a limb. She felt a sudden weight pressing on her, pinning her to the floor.  
  
"Wait! Blake! Wait for me!"  
  
The faunus stopped at Yang's anguished yell, but didn't turn to the blond girl behind her, crawling on her feet and arm towards her, desperate to reach for her partner. Yang gritted her teeth and grunted as what remained of her right arm throbbed painfully, but still kept going, watching as Blake's figure grew closer again, and relief made her heart swell, rise like a flaming phoenix from its embers. She knew Blake wouldn't abandon her.  
  
When she reached her, after what felt like an eternity, Yang's limbs were covered in blood and aching all over, scrapes and burns marring the exposed skin everywhere, but she barely cared. She stretched out her hand to Blake, a silent request to help her out and get her to her feet.  
  
However, in a fluid movement her hand was painfully swatted away and a kick to her face sent her flying back of a few feet. Yang screamed and instinctively clutched her head, blood now running across her cheek where the black heel had cut her.  
  
Blake finally, slowly faced her, and Yang found herself staring at a couple of crimson eyes that had been haunting her dreams for way too long.  
  
"Stupid girl," Raven spoke, the words cutting through Yang like the blade of the impossibly long sword now resting in her hand. "Who would ever want to love you?"  
  
In a second Raven was hovering over her, eyes colder than ice despite their color. She raised her sword, the pointed tip aimed right at Yang's heart.  
  
"Just die."  
  
The sword fell down, and everything turned to black.  
  


* * *

  
  
She woke up to the sound of screaming, but she couldn't pinpoint who was doing the screaming. There was this high-pitched sound ringing in her ears, agonizing and pained, like a fatally wounded animal, and at the same time a much more deeper voice calling out to her.  
  
"Yang! Yang! Wake up!"  
  
Two big, warm hands grabbed at her shoulders, soothing and firm, and gently shook her out of her stupor. Yang finally managed to open her eyes, and realized that she had been the one screaming and whimpering all along, and her father was sitting on her bed beside her, holding her, tightly but not too much, as though he was scared she would shatter in a thousand pieces if he let go of her or grabbed at her with too much force.  
  
It was the worry in his tired eyes that made her fully snap to reality. She slowly calmed down, forced herself to take a few, deep breaths and attempted a weak smile, ignoring the way her face was grossly covered in sweat, and her hair was sticking to her head.  
  
"Good evening." She tried to joke with a voice that came out too quivering to be anywhere near convincing.  
  
"It's four in the morning." Taiyang quietly replied with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, still cradling her in his hands. She felt so weak and useless, needing dad to come through and offer her support when she should have been strong, invincible, able to tackle down whatever crossed her path. And instead she was lying on her bed, waking up her old man at ungodly hours and feeling comfort in the welcoming warmth he radiated without even knowing.  
  
"Sorry for waking you up. Again."  
  
"Don't you worry about it, again," Taiyang waved his hand, and Yang immediately shivered at the halved source of warmth. "do you want to talk about it?"  
  
Yang felt her throat constrict as she remembered the nightmare, remembered the White Fang guy, Blake, Raven. Without thinking she felt her chest, checking the spot above her heart where Raven's sword had sunk in her flesh. Of course there was nothing, but the sense of emptiness, hollowness lingered behind nevertheless.  
  
"There is nothing to talk about. It's always the same stuff, I go there, try to punch him and then arm goes poof," Yang sat up and looked at her stump. It hurt like hell, like it had been immersed in scalding water, prickly and stinging. But she was not surprised, he doctors had aaid something along those lines when she had awakened in the hospital bed, a few days after Beacon fell. It wasn't the first time it happened, and it wouldn't be the last.  
  
"You screamed a name. Two actually."  
  
Yang stiffened and pursed her lips, defensive. Usually it would be enough to have Taiyang desist from pressing further, but this time he seemed oddly determined to get to the bottom of the matter. "So what if I did?"  
  
Taiyang sighed dejectedly and his shoulders sagged. All of a sudden, he looked much older than what he actually was, eyes lost in another place and time, like he used to do all the time back when Summer had died and he would just shut down, staring hollowingly to his hands on his lap without really seeing them.  
  
"You screamed for Blake not to go," he went on, watching her and carefully gauging her reaction, "and... for Raven."  
  
Anger flared through her blood vessels as the two names she had learned to love and hate sank into her consciousness, searing hot like it hadn't been in ages, and she didn't need to look into the mirror to know her eyes had turned crimson. She scowled and her fingers curled in a tight fist, to the point that the knuckles turned white and threatened to break the skin.  
  
"Listen... I can't say what went through your mother's mind, obviously," Taiyang let out a mirthless chuckle, and she wanted nothing more than yell that Raven... that woman was not her mom, Summer was. But how could she when her own eyes and temper screamed of Raven, when her own reflection was a constant reminder of the woman who had never wanted her?  
  
She could just go fuck herself, for all that she cared.  
  
"But your partner, Blake, she's not like Raven."  
  
"How do you know?" Yang finally exploded, anger and pain dripping from her voice. She wanted Taiyang to side with her on this one, he had been abandoned too, he _should have known_ this. "She ran! She vanished without so much of a word before I even got to open my eyes!"  
  
Now feeling too warm from her fury, she kicked the covers away from her and rose to her feet, not even bothering to put her slippers on. The chilly floor was a relief against the overheated bare skin of her feet. Taiyang simply watched as she paced around the tiny bedroom, her fist clenching and unclenching rhytmically at her side.  
  
"Yang. If she didn't care, she would not have brought you to safety." Tai insisted, half-pleading and half-patronizing. Only the gods knew how much she wished his words were true, but how could she, when everything else proved that was not the case? She'd stayed there, stranded at home for months, and no word from Blake ever arrived. Even Weiss had managed to sneak past all that Atlesian security and secretly send a letter to them, asking how Yang and Ruby were doing. It would have been so cute, seeing the Ice Queen getting so worked up with for their health, if only Yang had been in a better mood and hadn't shredded the letter to tiny confetti right after reading it. She should have forwarded it to Ruby, it would have lifted her spirits.  
  
"So she saved me once. Great, just great. Raven did that too. Now they're even." Yang spat out angrily, before she remembered neither she or Qrow had actually mentioned anything about her less than ideal encounter with Neo on the train to Tai, and how only Raven stepping in had prevented Yang's death. Taiyang's eyes widened in shock.  
  
"You met her?"  
  
"Not really." Yang admitted, "I thought I was hallucinating after I took a beating but Qrow confirmed it had actually happened. She was long gone by the time I woke up. Funny," she added with a bitter laugh, "Why does that sound familiar?"  
  
Taiyang sighed again. Yang couldn't make sense of the expression on his face: he seemed awfully tired and drained, but at the same time, kinda relieved, as if he had caught something in Yang's recount on Raven's actions that had completely escaped her. "So she really meant that..." he whispered to himself. Yang didn't understand what that meant and neither she wished to, in all honesty.  
  
"I don't care if they saved me out of pity or whatever. What's even the point if they choose to leave me behind all the same? I don't want their charity!!"  
  
She hated it, all of this. All she ever wanted was to know someone would love her enough to just stay when her happy-go-lucky mask cracked and her darker thoughts came out, to know that she could jump and someone would be there to catch her just like she'd do for them.  
  
She thought she'd found that someone within Blake, strong and quiet and kind, who had opened her heart to Yang and shared her dark past with her. Blake who she thought would understand and then doubted her when Yang was framed for assault, and who ran when Yang needed her the most, letting Yang plunge into a dark abyss.  
  
"And what are you going to do about it?" Taiyang asked, strangely sharp. "Just stay here and mope around, bask into your own sorrow?"  
  
She grit her teeth, wishing she could retort back, but she had nothing on her hand, because, as much as she denied it, she knew, deep inside, that she was doing just that. Ruby leaving her behind on her quest to save the world just proved that. She was useless as she was.  
  
"Yang, you are one that loves too much for her own good. You fear to disappoint and be found lacking, and boy, I can understand that." Again with that sad laugh of his. "But if you let your emotions take control of you, cloud your judgment, you'll only sink even further and consume yourself."  
  
"The crap is that supposed to mean?" She barked angrily, as the usual shame and fury that she had grown so accostumed to as of late came back to her with a vengeance.  
  
"What I want to tell you is that you have to move forward, Yang. You won't have to do it alone, but you have to take the first steps yourself."  
  
Yang's gaze flickered to the dresser, and more precisely to the large, unassuming box resting atop of it. It had been there, utterly untouched, ever since it had come with the mail a week ago and Taiyang had delicately placed it in her room, hoping it would help to light a spark of the old Yang back into her. Needless to say she barely looked at it.  
  
Not that she wasn't grateful; she had seen the mechanical arm, and she understood enough to see it was a little jewel of the most advanced technology - of course, it was Atlesian, after all, and a gift from Ironwood himself. It couldn't possibly be anything less than the best - but nevertheless, she had always pointedly refused to wear it. It felt like a rip-off, an attempt to fix what was not fixable, to deny that she had changed in a way that couldn't be undone. That she had failed.  
  
She was terrified. Terrified to wear it and find out she wasn't herself anymore, that she wasn't strong enough anymore.  
  
Taiyang stood up with a soft groan of the old springs of the mattress and walked up to her, placing a hand to her shoulder. He was not particularly tall, not much more than Yang herself, but never in her life had he felt so imposing, despite the warm smile on his face. She frowned and lowered her eyes, suddenly finding her own toes extremely interesting.  
  
"Whatever you do, my little sunny dragon, know that I'll always have your back."  
  
She cringed at the stupid name he kept calling her with ever since she was a little kid, but she knew he meant it. She had the nagging feeling he was still feeling guilty for his breakdown all those years ago, for indirectly almost causing his daughters' death. Of course it wasn't his fault; Yang had been the one running off with a sleeping Ruby in toe, chasing foolishly after a shadow that didn't deserve her love.  
  
"Why..." she hesitated, uncertain if she should voice a question that had long weighed on her mind. Tai nodded, encouraging her to go on, and she decided it was now or never. "Why did you never chase her?"  
  
Taiyang's smile turned sad, melancholic. "There were days I would have wanted to. Go after her, ask her what went wrong, why she decided to leave you behind. But then I'd look at you, smiling bright like a little star, and realized that it didn't matter that much. I had made my choice." He ruffled her hair with his free hand, eliciting an outraged yelp from Yang ("stop it, dad!"). "And I never once regretted it. Now it's your turn to do the same. I know you can do it, you just have to think long and hard and decide what really matters to you."  
  
He stepped back, looking at her as though he couldn't have been more proud of her if he wanted to. It left Yang a bit self-conscious, and uncomfortably flushed. She averted her eyes.  
  
"Are all dads as gross as you? You're embarrassing me over here!" She grumbled, and grinned when her father laughed and the heavy, emotionally charged air was diffused.  
  
"Probably! All dads would also say that it's abysmally late, and you should really get back to bed."  
  
"I'm eighteen! I'm an adult!" She protested loudly, puffing her cheeks.  
  
"You'll be eighteen in two months, young lady. And even adults need their beauty rest, I'll have you know."  
  
"And you clearly didn't get enough!"  
  
"And whose fault do you think was that?" Her father retorted without missing a beat, laughter lacing heavily his words. "Go to bed, Yang, I mean it."  
  
She rolled her eyes, knowing that he would end up staying up all night if he didn't personally see her fall asleep. He had a way to make her feel like she was still nine and rebellious. "Fine. I'm going." And to further make her point she climbed back onto the bed, gathering the covers she had recklessly thrown away earlier on and burrowed herself underneath them. She knew Taiyang was still on the threshold, watching her. "Happy now?"  
  
"Very. Good night."  
  
"Night!"  
  
The door clicked shut and she could hear Taiyang's steps moving on along the hallway, back to his room. Poor dad, he was probably dying of exhaustion and really didn't need Yang to pull him through even more crap. He didn't tell her directly, but she knew she was the reason he wasn't taking up missions, and even took several days off from his teaching job at Signal.  
  
She lay awake for who knew how long, thinking back to her dream and Tai's words. It wasn't that simple. She almost envied Ruby: her little sister's drive to do the right thing for the sake of it was so strong that even Pyrrha's tragic demise, that she witnessed first hand, had not been enough to deter her from growing and snap out of her haze. But Yang was not that kind-hearted and selfless, and she didn't think she'd ever be. She had just wanted the thrill, something that filled the void left from her mother, that proved that she was strong, worthy.  
  
She wanted to shine, to be noticed, to be admired.  
  
Then Blake happened, and all that hard work went through the window. Blake that would leave her breathless with the tiniest things, with her determination, with that shy flame burning in her soul, setting her golden eyes on fire and making Yang feel lost in them more times that she could count. She had fallen for the faunus girl, she knew it, and was eventually going to do something about it.  
  
Then Blake ran away, after making herself so important, taking Yang's heart with her.  
  
She swung her legs off the bed, carefully avoiding to step on those floor boards that she knew creaked loudly and that might alarm Taiyang and stepped out of bed, reaching for the box with the robotic arm within. She lifted the lid, a harder task than expected with only one hand, and took a look at the shining metal, all hard steel and refined mechanisms. It was truly a masterpiece of the finest engineering.  
  
She swallowed the lump in her throat and pointedly ignored how her pulse quickened as she oh-so-delicately picked up the limb and felt it in her hand. It was cold, heavy, solid.  
  
It wasn't that simple, but Yang had always loved challenges, after all.  
  


* * *

  
  
Bumblebee came to a stop with a soft purr of its engine and the screech of rubber on gravel. The road ahead split in two; according to the signs, the right path would lead her to Mistral, while the left one would carry her straight to a gang of dangerous bandits. Yang was sure the handwriting of the latter's sign was quite familiar.  
  
She sighed and readjusted her sunglasses on her nose with her metallic hand.  
  
"You're in so much trouble when I find you."  
  
She steered Bumblebee to the right and the engines roared like an enraged dragon, leaving a fog of dust and debris in her wake.  
  
She had made her choice, and she was not going to regret it.


End file.
